As widely expected on Thursday night, Donald Trump stood behind a podium emblazoned with the presidential seal in the White House and revealed his latest wave of lies about the 2020 presidential election.

Just like six years ago, Trump’s lies immediately collapsed upon scrutiny. None of the documents that Trump declassified backed up his outlandish claims about China, Venezuela, noncitizens or any other scapegoat for his defeat. Journalists and experts quickly debunked his narratives, and representatives of his government also contradicted them.

But before picking apart the details of Trump’s latest deceptions, some critical context should be established at the outset.

As the evidence overwhelmingly shows, Trump knew and knows that he lost to Joe Biden in 2020. He wasn’t merely wrong or deluded about the result.

Leaked audio showed Steve Bannon boasting before the election that Trump planned in advance to falsely claim victory even if he lost. Trump privately admitted to aides that he lost, and he buried reports that his campaign commissioned and paid for affirming that there was no fraud. That is to say, the Trump campaign paid two firms hundreds of thousands of dollars to find the election was rigged. Instead, they confirmed that Trump lost.

Trump’s election subversion indictment hinged on the premise that he conspired to defraud the United States, and it was fraud because it was based on knowing deceptions, not mistakes of fact.

“Despite having lost, the Defendant was...

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